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April 29, 2024
 

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ANIMAL TRACKER

Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Feb 13, 2008
Black-headed gull
Japanese name:Yurikamome
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jan 23, 2008
Common kingfisher
Japanese name: Kawasemi
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jan 9, 2008
Cave cricket
* Japanese name: Kamadouma * Scientific name: Atachycines apicalis * Description: A hump-backed insect with huge hind legs and long, sweeping antennae, the cave cricket is easily recognizable. It is brown, wingless, and the body is 3-4 cm long. The hind legs, with the femurs shaped like chicken drumsticks, are up to 8 cm long. The eyes are small and the insect has poor vision, relying on its antennae for sensory information. If startled it may leap in the direction of the perceived threat, in an apparent attempt to scare the potential predator. But don't worry, cave crickets are harmless. * Where to find them: They are all over Japan, from Hokkaido to Kyushu. Despite the name, this insect is probably more likely to be seen in a toilet than a cave, hence its other, somewhat derogatory name benjo-mushi (toilet insect). Unfortunately the cave cricket doesn't have a good reputation in Japan, being considered by many to be as bad as the cockroach. Cool and damp places, such as cellars and under stones, logs and in rotten trees and animal burrows are other favored habitats. * Food: Detritus and organic debris, such as bits of wood, decaying animal parts and plant matter. * Special features: Cave crickets live in dark places and are active at night. Like a blind person feeling their way with a stick, they rely on their sense of touch to get around in the world. The antennae constantly wave around in front of the animal, and the long legs allow it to both gingerly feel the terrain, and to leap away in case of danger. As well as being dark, caves (and toilets) generally don't have copious supplies of food, so the insect sometimes goes for long periods without sustenance. There are reports that it will eat its own legs if in dire need, but if you are dying of hunger it's not going to help things to damage yourself and impair your ability to move about. Even if food becomes available, the damage would be permanent, as cave crickets can't regenerate limbs.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Dec 26, 2007
Giant water bug
*Japanese name: Taikouchi *Scientific name: Laccotrephes japonensis *Description: Also known as water scorpions and "toe-biters," these are ferocious, tough insects with strong, sharp front legs for catching prey (and biting toes or fingers) and a beaked hypodermic-type mouth with which they stab the body of their prey. They grow up to 30 mm long and their body and limbs are streamlined for efficient swimming. These bugs look a bit like beetles, but they lack the hard shell covering the wings that beetles have. * Where to find them: In rivers and streams from Honshu to Kyushu. Around the stems of aquatic plants is the best place to find them, especially at the margins of river channels and in temporary pools. But be careful — their bite is notoriously painful, considered to be among the worst of all insect bites (excepting the stings of bees and wasps). Giant water bugs may also be found in flooded rice paddies, and they are capable of flying short distances to seek out new habitats. * Food: Tadpoles are the most popular food items, and they stand no chance if they are trapped by a giant water bug's pincer legs. Larger bugs will also eat frogs, and smaller ones (and bugs at the nymphal stage) will take mosquito larvae and snails. But tadpoles are the favored prey, with the animal being held tight in the sharp legs and drained of blood by the syringe-like mouth. Unfortunately, they are also important predators of another, endangered, species of giant water bug. In some parts of Asia (for example, Thailand) this animal is itself eaten by humans, though I've not had the pleasure and I wonder if the practice has died out now in Japan. * Special features: They have the ability to "play dead" if startled by a large predator (such as a human). If they are then picked up by the unsuspecting animal tracker, they will deliver their painful bite and then escape. There is a breathing tube from the abdomen that can be used to replenish air supplies. Unusually for invertebrates, the male looks after the eggs that the female lays. He doesn't have much choice: she lays them on his back and sticks them there with waterproof glue.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Dec 12, 2007
Wasp spider
* Japanese name: Naka-koganegumo * Scientific name: Argiope bruennichii * Description: You wouldn't really mistake this spider for a wasp, but its egg-shaped abdomen is dramatically striped in yellow, black and white, and the legs too are striped, though the overall pattern is perhaps more tigerish than wasplike. In any case, the coloration has the same function of that of a wasp. It says: "I'm dangerous, stay away." This is a fairly large spider, with a fat bulbous abdomen, a white thorax and head and a total body length of 2-2.5 cm. The legs, too, are some 2.5 cm long. There is another obvious identifying feature of this animal, however: on its web, the spider weaves a zig-zag pattern of silk (not seen in this photo), sometimes as an X-shape. This pattern is called a stabilimentum, from the idea that the silk stabilizes the web — but more of this later. * Where to find them: In paddy fields, gardens, forests and on plains from Honshu to Kyushu and Okinawa. The web is built very early every morning, in a low place in bushes. Each evening the female (the females spin the webs) consumes the silk, and rebuilds the web the next day. If you gently touch the web with a twig, the spider will bounce on it, shaking the structure with her legs. This is thought to help locate a prey item that has been caught. * Food: Small flying insects, such as aphids and dragonflies, crickets, grasshoppers and moths. The wasp spider will happily eat a wasp that gets trapped in her silk. * Special features: Wasp spiders make patterns on the web, perhaps to provide structural support, or perhaps in order to lure insects. Another idea is that the three-dimensional additions the female makes to the spiral structure of the web have an antipredator function. The silk she uses is a non-sticky kind used to build support lines, and could form a barrier function to repel animals from the web that are too large to trap. Field surveys have found that spiders with a wider abdomen and a smaller web constructed more barrier webs. This suggests an antipredatory function, because well-fed individuals, with fat abdomens, will put more effort into defense than trapping prey. Males, incidentally, are tiny — only 5-9 mm long — and creep up on females after they have molted, when the female's body is still soft. Males often choose this vulnerable moment to try to copulate with females.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Nov 28, 2007
Osprey
* Japanese name: Misago * Scientific name: Pandion haliaetus * Description: A distinctive, magnificent bird, with a wingspan of 180 cm, a body up to 60 cm long, and pure white underparts. The top side of the body is a deep brown, the head is white with a masklike stripe over the eyes that drapes onto the neck like a bandanna. If you were ever close enough to study the eyes, you would see a golden iris. If the color of the feathers isn't enough to distinguish it, the short tail and the four fingerlike feathers of the wings making drooping "hands" will settle the identification. The bill and the talons are black. The call is a "yewk yewk" noise, and when the bird is on the nest, it makes a "cheereek" call. It is also known as a fish hawk, which is the meaning of Uo-taka, the other Japanese word for the osprey. * Where to find them: Ospreys are found from Hokkaido to Kyushu, but like most creatures featured in Animal Tracker, there are fewer ospreys than there used to be, and they are classified as "near-threatened." Ospreys make a large pile of sticks for a nest, building it near water, whether that is a salt marsh, a mangrove swamp, a lake or a river. * Food: Fish. The outer toe is reversible, so the osprey can grasp its prey with two toes in front and two behind. Ospreys sight their prey while flying over water, then hover and plunge up to a meter below the surface to catch the fish. * Special features: Ospreys are beautifully adapted to catching fish. The scales on the feet point backward, the better to grasp hold of fish, and their nostrils close when they plunge underwater. Sometimes the fish is so securely grasped that the bird has trouble releasing it if it turns out to be heavier than anticipated. Despite the lower numbers, and the fact that the birds mate with a partner for life (20 to 25 years), male ospreys still manage to find females other than their partners to mate with — though they don't stay around to help raise the chicks of any extra-pair females.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Nov 14, 2007
Rosy bitterling
* Japanese name: Tairiku baratanago * Scientific name: Rhodeus ocellatus ocellatus * Description: A small freshwater fish in the carp family, native to Taiwan, the rosy bitterling grows to some 6.5cm long. It's a pretty thing, with a flat silver body touched with green behind the head, blue on the sides and, in the breeding season (March to September), males develop a rosy glow on their flanks, tail and fins. The eye often has a gold-orange iris. A similar species, the native Japanese bitterling, easily interbreeds with the rosy bitterling. * Where to find them: In ponds, especially farm ponds where mussels are grown, and reservoirs and streams, from southern Honshu to Kyushu and Okinawa. They prefer warmer temperatures from 18-24 C, and areas with dense plant growth. They are tough, and able to survive in water that is low in oxygen. The native Japanese subspecies is now critically endangered, as the rosy bitterling has interbred with it. Conservation efforts are being made to save it. The rosy bitterling was introduced from Taiwan to eastern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. * Food: Pretty much anything. Bitterlings, like other carp, are omnivorous and dig around in the detritus on the pond floor, eating insects and insect larvae that they disturb, also phytoplankton plants and larger plants such as pond weed. The snuffling around on the pond floor throws up clouds of mud, and the bitterling relies to some extent on a keen sense of smell to locate food items, but it will also take anything promising into its mouth, spitting it out if it is inedible. * Special features: Because they are usually found associated with bivalve mollusks such as mussels, bitterlings were thought to be symbiotic with their shells. In fact, the fish form parasitic relationships with them. When the females spawn, they deposit their eggs inside the shells, attaching the eggs to the gills of the mussel where the developing fish benefit from the oxygen. Two to three fish larvae develop safely inside the mollusks and feed off them, remaining inside for 15 to 30 days until they can swim. Juveniles leave the mussels by the bivalve's siphon, and are about 7.5 mm long when they brave the open waters on their own.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Oct 24, 2007
Little red damselfly
* Japanese name: Beni-itotonbo * Scientific name: Ceriagrion nipponicum * Description: The clue's in the name: This insect is small (just 35 mm long) and red — although the females, which are a slightly duller orange, or even brown, don't sport the vivid vermilion of the males. The four wings are held folded at rest over the abdomen like all damselflies. * Where to find them: Well, these days, the little red damselfly has become scarce. It lives on in still water across Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, but many of the ponds where it lived have been reclaimed, polluted or overwhelmed with non-native fish. These factors have driven down the numbers of this damselfly, which is now extinct in many parts of the Kanto Region, though it can still be seen in central Tokyo — it is (along with several other dragonfly species) abundant in the gardens of the Imperial Palace. The insect is a weak flier, staying low to the water surface, and much prefers to fly only in warm and calm weather. * Food: Other flying insects. Tiny flies and midges. Being such a weak, low-flying insect, the little red damselfly doesn't have many prey options. * Special features: On such a small animal, you wouldn't expect there to be much room available for passengers. Yet tiny water mites hitch rides on the damselfly's body, clearly illustrating the universal nature of parasitism: parasites are everywhere, nothing can escape being parasited. Studies have found that 98 percent of little red damselflies are parasitized by even smaller water mites, which fasten to the exoskeleton and suck their blood. It's no joke carrying mites — although the parasites don't seem to affect the lifespan of the insect, parasitized males are much less likely to get mates. However, the female mates of those that do pull it off lay eggs in debris in ponds and bogs. The eggs hatch after about a month, and the tiny, 16-mm-long larvae develop over the next two years.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Oct 10, 2007
Freshwater blue goby
* Japanese name: Ruri-Yoshinobori * Scientific name: Rhinogobius sp. * Description: Gobies have a slender body with a rather large head, bulbous eyes, fleshy cheeks and a full-lipped mouth, giving them something of a cartoon appearance. Males have shining bright blue spots on their cheeks and body. The gorgeous, lapis lazuli-colored spots are not present on the female or on young fish, but another identifying feature is a Y-shape connection between the caudal (tail) fin and the body. The blue goby grows up to 10 cm long. * Where to find them: In fast-flowing streams from Honshu to Kyushu. If you are paddling in a stream, you may find that the gobies gather around your feet. Perhaps they like the shelter. They prefer warmer waters, so they will not be found in cold mountain streams. Blue gobies are fairly unusual in the goby family for being adapted to survive in freshwater. Most species are salt-water fish. * Food: As omnivores, gobies eat algae, worms, insect larvae and tadpoles. Gobies are highly important as prey items themselves: Many other larger fish rely on gobies as their main food source. * Special features: There isn't an official name in English for this fish (goby being a general term), and even the scientific species name is apparently not yet decided (hence the sp.). One potential name I'd suggest is the "lady-boy fish." That's because some fish researchers have noticed that some of the males of this species mimic females. Occasionally male fish are found that look like females, in coloration and morphology. Other female-mimics are more malelike, so there is a spectrum of morphology and appearance among the female-mimics, with some males looking very much like females and others only looking slightly like them. Female-mimics lack the beautiful blue spots on the body and cheeks. Now, why do they do it? On the few lady-boy fish that have been studied, the males that mimic females have been found to have larger testes than "normal" males. They might look like females, but they are most decidedly male when it comes to sperm production. This suggests that mimics are "pretending" to be females so they can hang out with real females and then mate with them unexpectedly. When a female lays her eggs and her partner male is preparing to fertilize them, the sneaky mimic can suddenly release a large amount of sperm over the eggs, swamping that of the "real" male.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 26, 2007
Horned turban shell
* Japanese name: Sazae * Scientific name: Turbo cornutus * Description: One of the most prized of all marine gastropods, the horned turban shell — more familiar to sushi aficionados as sazae — has a large, thick, green-gray shell and a snail-like body. The shell has about five spirals, which turn counterclockwise and have horny protuberances. The thickness and shape of the shell and the horns vary greatly according to environmental conditions. The shell-opening is about 3.5 cm in diameter, and is green or red-brown. The inside lip of the shell is not smooth, but rough and granular. It's a kind of marine snail, a sort of conch. * Where to find them: In relatively shallow coastal waters (up to 30 meters deep) around the Japanese islands from Honshu to Kyushu and Okinawa. * Food: All sorts of algae. Young horned turban shells eat red-turf algae, while adults eat larger seaweed. * Special features: The animals spawn from August to September, although the ovaries and testes start to "ripen" from May. The larvae have a very short period as free-floating plankton, just five days or so, and then they settle and start to grow a shell. The planktonic stage and the early shell-growing period are highly dangerous times for young horned turban shells, and many are eaten. Since sazae is such a delicacy in Japan, and commercially important, natural populations are supplemented by artificially reared juveniles. Large numbers of animals are bred and then dumped into the open sea to complete their growth, and this is reducing the genetic diversity of the animal, which may leave it vulnerable to disease. Due to an anatomical quirk of growth, the anus of gastropods is located on the head. They breathe through gills, and when they are collected to eat, they are kept alive for a while so they can clear their gut contents.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 12, 2007
Carp
* Japanese name: Koi (Nishiki-goi) * Scientific name: Cyprinus carpio * Description: A big, colorful fish, with large scales and barbels (those are the "whiskers" growing down from the upper lips). They can grow to well over a meter in length, and live for more than 15 years. They are related to other familiar fish such as goldfish, but can be distinguished from them by the presence of those barbels. * Where to find them: They live in fresh water, and were originally native to China, but became widely known throughout the world via Japan, where they were first bred in Niigata in the 1820s. The mountain people there kept the fish as food animals for the winter, but people also came to appreciate them for their bright colors. Carp became known as "living jewels." Now they are found all over the world, and you are likely to find them in any decent-sized pond in Japan, especially in the grounds of temples. * Food: Basically vegetarian, carp feed on water plants. But they will certainly also take plankton, insects and shellfish, and even scavenge dead fish that might be bobbing around in the water. They feed by snuffling about in the sediment on the pond floor. For this habit, they are regarded as a pest species in the United States, because the silt they stir up is detrimental to other fish. * Special features: Carp can be amazingly prolific breeders. Females may become sexually mature as young as 1 year old, and can spawn 100,000 to 300,000 eggs per kg of their body weight. In the breeding season, they spawn three times over a 2-week period. Not surprisingly, a gravid female (one full of eggs) is followed eagerly by a group of several males, all hoping to shed their sperm over the eggs when they are laid. The tiny yellow eggs (about 1.3 mm in diameter) are not guarded, but are simply dumped onto grass blades where they hatch after three days. This is the reason carp lay so many eggs — they make tasty snacks for a range of predators, including other fish, so the only chance of ensuring that some make it to adulthood is to lay thousands of eggs. A tasty fish, as I write this I would like to eat one cooked with miso soup, in a dish called koi-koku.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Aug 22, 2007
Spot-billed duck
* Japanese name: Karugamo * Scientific name: Anas poecilorhyncha * Description: A medium-sized, mainly gray duck that has a pale head and a black bill with a bright yellow tip. At 60 cm long, and with mottled "scaly pattern" plumage, it looks and sounds similar to the more familiar mallard, but the mallard's bill is completely yellow and its head plumage is green. The tops of the wings of the spot-billed duck are whitish, and the flight feathers are black. The male has a red spot on the underside of the bill. * Where to find them: A migratory bird in some parts of Asia, in Japan it is a resident, and can be seen in Tokyo in small flocks on ponds all over the city. It can also be seen on marshland and rice paddies across Honshu and Kyushu. Spot-billed ducks nest on the ground, hidden in thick vegetation. Breeding is from July to September, and females lay eight to 14 eggs. A female being followed by a fleet of chicks is a common sight. * Food: Vegetable matter, which is reached by the duck up-ending itself and scratching around on the floor of a pond. Unlike certain other water birds, these ducks do not often dive. They also take invertebrates such as snails and worms and insect larvae. * Special features: These days it seems evidence of global warming is showing up everywhere. By no means conclusive, it can be seen in the distribution of the spot-billed ducks. Over the last 100 years, these ducks have been gradually expanding their northern range: they now live some 500 km further north than they did at the beginning of the 20th century. Like mallards, male spot-billed ducks engage in forced copulation. Although they are sociable and form pair bonds, males will readily copulate with any "spare" females they happen to encounter. For this reason not all the chicks that follow the females in summer will be the offspring of the male that paddles along with them.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Aug 8, 2007
Mountain slug
* Japanese name: Yamanamekuji * Scientific name: Incilaria fruhstorferi * Description: Growing up to 20 cm long — bigger than a baby's arm — this is surely no slug, but a monster; a specter from a Hayao Miyazaki movie come to life. If you see one, be prepared to photograph it next to your hand, if you can bear to put your hand so close, for no one will believe you if you simply claim without evidence to have come across this giant shell-less gastropod mollusk. It is a mottled lump of "gristle," colored brown, beige and black, the gristle being mainly a muscular foot. On the top, behind the head, which has two pairs of tentacles, is the mantle — underneath this are the all-important genital opening and a hole for respiration, as well as the anus. The mouth is between the lower, smell-detecting tentacles (the upper tentacles are the eyes), and contains a radula, which is like a tongue with teeth. Both pairs of tentacles retract into the body when the animal hits an obstacle, or if you poke them gently with your finger. * Where to find them: Slugs live all over Japan, in grassland, woodland and farmland, parks and gardens — where they are especially feared and loathed. Mountain slugs are more elusive than their garden cousins, and live at higher altitudes, in more rural areas, amid leaves, rocks and soil. They are sensitive to water conditions, and when there is little water they hide under rocks to preserve liquid. * Food: Mainly decomposing matter from plants, but also from dead animals, even other dead slugs: the mountain slug is not fussy. Fungus is also eaten, along with fruit and vegetables, making them an enemy of farmers and gardeners. * Special features: If seeing one of these beasts alone is startling, be prepared in case you see two, especially in amorous embrace. Slugs produce mucus, which helps them glide over the ground and stops them falling down steep surfaces, but which is also used during copulation. The mountain slug is a hermaphrodite, having both male and female reproductive organs. To copulate, two slugs wrap themselves around each other and exchange both eggs and sperm. Sometimes, for good measure, one or both slugs will chew off the other's penis. This is done not for a tasty snack, but because the penis often gets stuck in the body of the receiving slug: eating it enables the slugs to disengage. A slug with its penis chewed off is no longer able to function as a hermaphrodite; it is now and forever a female. The mountain slug hibernates in dead logs over winter.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jul 25, 2007
Carpenter bee
* Japanese name: Kumabachi * Scientific name: Xylocopa appendiculata * Description: A large, stout, noisy insect, the carpenter bee spooks most people when they see one. It should not spook any reader of this column, though: the bees are mostly harmless. In fact, males are completely harmless, and females will only sting if severely and directly provoked. Do nothing, and they'll do nothing to you. The bee is dark and has a baffle of orange fur over its thorax, like a miniature lionskin thrown over its shoulders. Unlike bumblebees, the abdomen is mainly hairless, or at least is covered with shiny bald spots. Males have larger eyes than females, which is because they rely on eyesight when courting and mating. Females, it seems, don't care what males look like. The Japanese name means "bear bee." * Where to find them: Carpenter bees get their name because they live in dead wood — either dead trees or logs, in bamboo or in structural beams in houses and barns. In many parts of the world, this makes them pests to humans, though some people consider a carpenter bee in their house as a sort of pet, and in fact the tunnels they make are near the surface, so there is no structural damage caused by their nests. In Japan, they are found from Honshu to Kyushu. * Food: Pollen and nectar from various flowers. * Special features: If you think about it, all species of bee have a special system of care for their young. Carpenter bees do not have the advanced social nests and caste system of honey bees and other social species, but they are nevertheless rather caring as insects go. Females only lay about 10 eggs, compared to the hundreds that other insects lay. She chews out a little cell in the wood into which she lays an egg. Each egg is huge, so as to give the young bee the best possible start in life. The plump larvae are cared for by the mother, and daughters, once they have pupated into adult bees, usually remain in the nest with their mother. Many carpenter bees have a little pouch on their abdomen, in which live mites. The exact relationship between the two animals is not known, but it is thought that in return for a place to live, the mites eat fungi that might otherwise grow in the bee's nest, and perhaps also kill other enemy mites that might wander in.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jul 11, 2007
Rock swallow
* Japanese name: Iwa tsubame * Scientific name: Delichon dasypus * Description: The translation of the Chinese name for this bird is smoky-bellied hair-leg swallow. It is also known as the Asian housemartin. It's a small bird, some 12-cm long, and is colored a dark steel-blue above and is white — not smoky — underneath. The throat is gray, and the underwings are gray-brown. Young birds are duller. Perhaps it's the wings that give the smoky name. Males give a "za-za-za" call. It has white feathers covering the legs and toes, hence the "hair-leg" part of the name. * Where to find them: On cliffs and large buildings or bridges. Temples are also popular nesting sites. They build a cone-shaped nest of mud mixed with a special gluelike saliva, and line the nest with grass and feathers. It's considered auspicious if a swallow or housemartin builds a nest on your house — although given that this bird likes to nest on large buildings, you are already quite auspicious if one nests on your house. * Food: Insects. Birds in this family — housemartins and swallows — like to skim low over the ground and water catching flies. They are highly maneuverable, with a fork-shaped tail and tapered wings, enabling them to twist and turn with speed and agility. Rock swallows will take pretty much any insect they can, including dragonflies, small beetles, mayflies and even moths and butterflies. * Special features: Asian housemartins lay a clutch of three or four white eggs, usually twice a year. The male and the female both help build the nest, incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. Much of the life of the housemartin is spent in the air, and the bird is adapted to this lifestyle with its streamlined shape, large eyes to help with catching small prey at high speed, and small legs to reduce drag while flying. They are a migratory species, flying sometimes thousands of kilometers to spend the winter in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Micronesia. It is a common bird, but there have been slight declines in numbers recently and that has meant it is classified as "amber" on the endangered list.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jun 27, 2007
Soft-shelled turtle
* Japanese name: Suppon * Scientific name: Pelodiscus sinensis * Description: This is a medium-sized turtle whose carapace (the upper part of the shell) grows up to 25-cm long, and is colored olive, gray, or mottled pale green/brown. It has a long head with a pointed snout and bulging eyes, giving it a somewhat crocodilian appearance. The lower half of the shell, called the plastron, is typically darker than the carapace in juveniles, and pink or white in adults. No surprise that the carapace of the soft-shelled turtle is soft and rubbery. * Where to find them: Soft-shelled turtles are very fond of the water and will usually be seen swimming in slow-flowing rivers and canals, or in ponds with a sandy or muddy bottom. Rice fields are also popular habitats. They may sometimes be seen basking in the sun on stones, but they will quickly slip into the water if they see you. During the day they spend much of the time buried in mud, absorbing oxygen through their skin. They can be seen across Honshu and Kyushu. This turtle has also, incidentally, spread widely across the world — for example, it is found in Guam, Hawaii and the continental United States. Asian immigrants in these places farm the turtle for food, and escapees have established their own populations. * Food: Voracious carnivores, soft-shelled turtles will eat most things they can fit into their mouths: insects, crustaceans, mollusks and fish. They supplement their diet with the seeds of river and marsh plants. In some parts of Japan (and in many parts of Asia), the turtle is bred for food, typically soups. Soft-shelled turtles were traditionally caught by hand, at night. * Special features: The introduction of the soft-shelled turtle to new areas is thought to have had a negative impact on indigenous fauna. In China and Japan, some people consider these aquatic reptiles to be a health-restoring "tonic" food. Populations of the turtle can become rapidly established. Females lay clutches of 15 to 28 eggs, with multiple clutches per year. The eggs are buried in moist soil from May to August, and hatch within 2-3 months. Mating, taking place from May to July, occurs when the male clasps the female's shell with the claws on his forelimbs, and mounts her, sometimes biting her neck and legs. The turtle hibernates from October to April.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jun 13, 2007
Buchi salamander
* Japanese name: Buchi-sansho-uo * Scientific name: Hynobius naevius * Description: This is a lizard-like animal growing from 8 to 15 cm long, including the tail. Also known as the blotched or spotted salamander, it is dark brown with a purple tinge, and has blotches of silver and white spots over its glistening wet body. The spots tend to be larger on the flanks and tail and smaller on the head. However, the markings of this salamander appear to vary depending on its location, and sometimes the blotches may be yellow — indeed, there may occasionally be none at all. Adults have something of an embryonic appearance, with their rounded shape, softness and their thick, short legs. * Where to find them: In forested, mountainous regions across Kyushu and Shikoku, and from central to western Honshu. The buchi salamander can be found in any type of forest, either deciduous or coniferous. During the day it lives under logs and rocks, and at night and on rainy days it forages. This amphibian breeds in mountain springs and streams, and females lay eggs in egg sacs in parts of the stream where the current is not strong. * Food: These animals will eat small invertebrates, insects such as crickets, grasshoppers and beetles, as well as worms and spiders — juicy creatures that live and lurk in among leaf litter. The juvenile animals, the larvae, are also partial to tadpoles and insect larvae. * Special features: Salamanders are primitive amphibians, being less specialized for life on the land than are frogs or toads. This is why they only tend to be active at night, or when it's raining. They have chemical weapons in case of attack, however, releasing a foul-smelling substance if they are disturbed. Males, like other amphibians, don't have a penis. During the breeding season the male's tail turns blue. If courtship is successful, the male produces a bag of sperm and the female draws it into her body. She then produces a pair of spiral egg sacs, each containing up to 36 eggs. The envelope of the sacs is transparent and tough, and protects the embryonic young as they develop. Salamanders have their DNA arranged in far more chromosomes than mammals.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
May 23, 2007
Mitten crab
* Japanese name: Mokuzu gani * Scientific name: Eriocheir japonica * Description: A curious-looking crustacean, colored light brown or olive green, the mitten crab does indeed appear to be wearing a furry pair of gloves, with dense tufts growing on the claws, which have white tips. Adults and large juveniles have these fuzzy patches, but they do not reappear on claws that have regenerated. The carapace (shell) grows up to 8 cm across, but more usually 5 cm, and the legs reach out about twice as long as the shell is wide, giving the crab something of a spider-crab appearance. There are four spines on each side of the shell. * Where to find them: Mitten crabs are catadromous, which means that they live mainly in fresh water, and breed in salt water. As larvae they live in estuaries, and as they grow they move into freshwater streams where they stay for up to three years before returning to coastal waters to reproduce. Inland, look for them in the mud and stones at the bottom of freshwater rivers and estuaries, and also in the mud along the banks. They live in burrows, sometimes at high densities, and their digging can destabilize river banks. They can be seen in freshwater areas throughout the year, but they stay in saltwater coastal areas only from September to January and from March to May. * Food: Mitten crabs are not fussy eaters, and being omnivorous they will take both plants and pretty much any animal they can catch in their claws: clams, worms, insect larvae, shrimps or fish. * Special features: Two things: their taste and their invasive nature. Mitten crabs are considered delicacies in East Asia, and over the years they have been illegally imported live into the United States to be sold as food. When they escape, however, they survive. Their long legs allow the crabs to walk well on land, which means they can get round barriers and invade new areas. Also, they are very tolerant of altered and polluted habitats. Combined with their non-fussy diet, this allows mitten crabs to aggressively invade new areas and displace existing species. It is thought that males wanting to mate do not approach females using smell, but only by sight. This means that they are unable to determine if the targeted female has mature ovaries, and so they just try any female. If she is not mature, she will reject the male. This is a primitive form of mating, but it hasn't prevented the mitten crab from prospering.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
May 9, 2007
Four-spot midget
* Japanese name: Hinuma itotombo * Scientific name: Mortonagrion hirosei * Description: "Four-spot midget" is an odd name for an insect, but in this case it is entirely accurate. This is a tiny animal, just 25-mm in length with four distinct spots on the top of the thorax. Males and females are the same color, a delicate jade green on the underside of the eyes and thorax. The abdomen is gray-brown, and the top of the thorax and eyes are dark brown. The four thoracic spots are jade. * Where to find them: From Honshu to Kyushu, in reed beds in brackish waters. Discovered rather recently — in 1972 — it is thought to be the last new species of odonate (the collective name for dragonflies and damselflies) to be described in Japan. This is quite a distinction for the country known in ancient mythology as Akitsushima, which means "Land of the Dragonflies." It is a globally endangered species, and perhaps the rarest dragonfly in Japan, because its already rare habitat of saltwater reeds is disappearing. For this reason the IUCN Species Survival Commission Odonata Specialist Group recommend it as a priority species for protection. Reed cutting has caused the local extinction of the damselfly in some parts of Japan as this removes stems of reeds that the animal uses to lay eggs into. Its flying season spans from May to October * Food: Small flying insects, with the emphasis on small. Adults catch midges and mosquitoes that live in reed swamps. The larvae of the four-spot midget are naturally small, but are voracious predators. They do us a favor by devouring the larvae of midges and mosquitoes. For this reason it has been considered a potentially good species to introduce into the southeastern United States, where mosquitoes living in brackish waters can be a health problem. * Special features: This damselfly is highly unusual in that it's a halophile, which literally means "salt lover." Almost all other odonates prefer clean, freshwater, but this one likes salty water. The larvae are therefore adapted to the different conditions — such as lower oxygen content — found in brackish water.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 25, 2007
Oil beetle
* Japanese name: Hime tsuchihanmyo * Scientific name: Meloe coarctatus * Description: A handsome (at least I think so) shiny black beetle, with long legs and an elongated body, which unusually has short elytra (wing covers) that expose most of the abdomen. In most beetles, the hard wing-cases completely cover the abdomen, but the oil beetle -- also called the blister beetle (for good reason) -- has a different method of protecting itself. The body is some 2 cm long. If you see a swollen appendage on the front pair of legs, that means it's a male. * Where to find them: From Honshu to Kyushu, in gardens, parks, grassland and woodland. Flowers are a good place to look, but be careful if you find one (see below). * Food: The adults feed on flowers and the leaves of various plants, such as amaranths, daisies, sunflowers, legumes and nightshades. The larvae, however, are insectivorous -- they enter the nests of wild bees, and attack the developing bee larvae. How do they get into a bees' nest? They lurk by flowers, and cling to the legs of visiting bees, so hitching a ride to the nest. Once there, they then eat larvae and pollen stores. They may also eat grasshopper eggs. * Special features: If you startle an oil beetle, it will play dead. If you -- or a bird or other predator -- nevertheless try to touch the insect, you might get a shock. In the beetle's blood is a poisonous chemical called cantharin that squirts from the leg joints and causes blistering of the skin (hence the beetle's other name). Cantharin also has another function: When they mate, the male transfers the chemical to the female, who uses it to cover her eggs to protect them from predators. Two hundred years ago, a French entomologist discovered (don't ask me how) that cantharin is a kind of terribly painful aphrodisiac. If a man consumes it, it causes a 4-hour erection. But there is nothing pleasurable about this: the swelling is caused by irritation of the urinary tract. Some dubious wart-removal products contain the blistering chemical, too.
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